Wallflowers
by cadmiumredvulpini
Summary: Steve owns Wallflower's, a cozy little shop that caters to the Brooklyn bibliophile-problem is, he's not getting any customers. So he hires pre-med student Bucky Barnes, to help him around the shop, and he's instantly attracted. And then the gang is just the gang. Domestic, light. Natasha is the sternest damned coffee shop owner you'll ever meet.


Review. Indulge me.

I hope you like it!

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Steve was seated on the edge of the battered chaise longue, expectantly peering out of his cluttered, dusty shop window, waiting for the undergraduate who'd applied for the role of his assistant. See, Steve owned Wallflower's–a nice little corner bookshop that catered to the Brooklyn bibliophile, his extensive catalogue of books, pre-loved and new, ranging from Homer to Machiavelli, Austen to Dickens, Fitzgerald to King. There were only a few books in the significant literary history of the english language that Steve didn't have, and when he didn't, he had them ordered from his secret supplier.

It was 10:17 in the morning, slender beeches still yawning and stretching their branches, much unlike most of the Brooklyn populace, who, by now were out and about with their Saturday proceedings. Steve didn't exactly give his new assistant a time to show up at work, but he does remember mentioning 'come early.' Steve reclined a bit on the chair, stole a long moment to get past a few pages of his Isabel Allende novel before looking up again at the door, where a James Buchanan Barnes was standing behind the glass, grinning like a mule.

This James fella, Steve thought, was actually good-looking. Steve saw him only once before, actually, coming in with his mother to ask him about an opening as an assistant. James's mom was a really sweet woman, who worked hard at the hospital. Steve admired people who gave their all for other people, and had it not been for his frail form and his constant denial on his applications, he'd've been in the army by now — in the end, he had decided there were several other ways to help people.

During the entire ordeal of James Buchanan Barnes' mother applying for her son, James Buchanan Barnes (call me Bucky), Steve had been thinking holy shit this Bucky guy is drop-dead gorgeous, but that was just an accessory to the fact that he seemed competent and hardworking, as Steve had gathered from the short conversations he had with his mother.

"Assistant, remember that," Steve told himself, huffing.

Steve can't say he was excited about having an assistant, no. He would've actually preferred the solitude of his shop, except that for that reason alone Wallflower's attracted little audience–everyone thought it was always closed. Steve thought that maybe with an assistant around, customers can actually be catered to.

He rose from the seat, finally, gave the best of smiles he can, and pulled open the door. Bucky was still practically beaming as he made his way inside, his smile completely uninhibited, and that, in all honesty, bothered Steve a little.

"Hey, Mr. Rogers." Bucky greeted cheerfully, shoving his hands deep in his pockets, looking nervous, His eyes shifted place to place and when he rubbed his hands together exhaled slowly, Steve heard the tiniest hint of a voice at the back of his head, saying: 'cute.'

Things like that were a no-no, Steve thought. Not only was this boy still in university (he's past legal age, Steve!), he worked for him (no hurt in trying though...) Steve pushed away his (likely completely sensible and rational) irrational thoughts and said. "Hi, uh, so..." He mirrored Bucky and had his hands in his trouser pockets as well, the ends of his shoes pointing straight at the other man. "You can start by, uh, cleaning up, I guess. I can help you with the rearrangement, once you're done with the dusting and sweeping."

Bucky's persistent smile did not falter. "Sure, Mr. Rogers," he said, still staring at the older man. "An' thanks a lot for, you know, takin' me instead of that other, uh, film school boy. I'm really grateful for the job, see, my ma's not really the moneymaker, Mr. Rogers, an' we just live off what little she makes an' it's a wonder I'm in college, really."

Steve fidgeted a little, being the object of Bucky's incessant staring. "Well, you sure look stronger than that other kid." He said, instantly regretting it. Compliments like that are dangerous, Steve (even if it's perfectly appropriate and within context?) he told himself.

Bucky's smile only brightened against his blush. "Oh," He said, his hand scratching at the back of his head, swinging a direction, pivoting on one foot as he eyed the floor. "Th-thanks a lot, Mr. Rogers."

Steve only shrugged this time, but Bucky was relentless.

"Really, Mr. Rogers, I'm so grateful you accepted me. It's just... no other jobs really wanted a pre-med student, and seeing as the extra hours at the hospital don't pay off at all, this is the best job I could find, I mean, it was this or the docks. An' my ma really needs all the help she can get an' oh–" He paused and pulled out a brown paper bag from his jacket pocket with his right hand. "My ma said to give this to ya," He said, holding out the crumpled up bag. "Brownies. She wants to thank you for pickin' the out o' the elbows Brooklyn boy."

Steve took the package and smiled at the other boy, saying. "Thanks a lot, you shouldn't have, really."

"It's nothing, she loves makin' brownies for everyone. She's nothin' if it ain't for her brownies, she always says." Bucky's hands went back in his pockets, and he looks all over the place again, saying. "My ma also said you looked mighty fine. Said the blonde, blue-eyed guys were her type if she weren't married to my pop, heh. We got the same type, really." He laughed, not meeting Steve's eyes. "She, ah, just told me when we applied for the job..."

Steve almost did a double take at what Bucky said. "Pardon me? You've got what?"

"Huh?" Bucky asked, laughing to himself. "Got what, Mr. Rogers?"

"The same–"

"Oh look at the time, I gotta get started on the dusting if we ever wanna get to rearranging today." Bucky cut in, pacing around the shop excitedly. Steve might as well just drop it and handed Bucky the feather duster and pointed to the corner at the broom and dustpan. The shop was cramped between the shelves and Steve found himself breathing in nineteen year old as soon as he led Bucky deeper into the shop.

"You've got a, uh, girl, Mr. Rogers?" Bucky said, eyeing the sets of encyclopedias on his left and right. "Or, you know, a guy."

"N-no... ah, I don't." Steve said, walking faster ahead of Bucky, nervously. "Uh, here's the bathroom, and the cashier's over here, but I'll teach you about that later. Uh, there's a back room over there where you can rest and then there's a set of stair leading up to my place. Uh, if there are special orders of books you can find them upstairs as well."

"Okay," Bucky said, taking in all the brand new info. "I shoulda, uh, get started, then. Where should I start?"

"I think it's better if you start over here in the back, but it's up to you, really." Steve said, turning to Bucky, who he caught downright staring at him before he turned his attention to the floor.

"I gotta—"

"So, I shoulda—"

Bucky held his silence, allowing the older man to continue. "I gotta go run a few errands… yeah, I'll get back to you in a few."

"O-of course, thanks, again, Mr. Rogers, for everything. Really." Bucky sighed as Steve let his frail form out of the small, dusty shop, which Bucky now had all day to dust.

—

"So, my new assistant is hot." Steve chimed as he entered the cool, dimly illuminated coffee shop. The store was almost completely void of customers, except for the few regulars that came to the shop almost daily. A redhead made her way out of the counter and slammed a metal thermos on the table in front of a woman who looked like she was in her middle-age crises. The woman looked up at her, looking like she had just been woken violently (which she had,) and smiled at the redhead.

"Thanks, sugar." She said. Steve almost warmed at the sight of Natasha Romanoff actually smiling back, but the feeling went away as soon as it came the moment the smile melted off her lips instantaneously when she turned to face him.

"The film school kid? Didn't think you were in for tall dark and lanky pretentious art type—oh wait, or was that just you looking at a vertically stretched mirror." Nat chided. Steve merely rolled his eyes before telling her his order.

"Vanilla Fra—" Natasha cut him off saying, "the sweetest, gayest drink around town, yeah, I know what you'll have."

"Okay, whatever." Steve replied, hands off the table in defeat. "And there was someone else who applied, some James Buchanan Barnes. I didn't like the film kid"

"Name's a mouthful. What's he like? Don't tell me he's like the last guy you dated." Nat said as she went back into the kitchen to prepare two shots of vanilla. "You know you're doing it too hard when you've got bruises on your thighs and you can't sit down properly." She continued, adding milk and water to the tall cup.

She swirled a generous layer of whipped cream on top of Steve's frothy, creamy vanilla drink before criss crossing several lines of caramel syrup onto the top layer. She slipped out of the bar again in one suave motion, and sat across Steve on one of the the comfortable chairs that lay empty in the early hours of Saturday.

"It's not like that," Steve responded defensively, fretting at how she had just casually alluded to his rough sex aloud. "He's nineteen, and I just like him a lot, okay? Nothing to worry about. I don't even know if he's gay or just playful. Might even flirt with you if he sees ya,"

"Let him try," Natasha growled before sending him off to Sam's flower shop to replenish her vases with fresh daisies and violets. Steve was really not in the mood to pick up flowers for her, but he did just tell Bucky he was going to run some errands, so he might as well have stuck with the alibi he'd given the kid.

"Just, keep an eye on the shop every now and then," Steve said as he exit the shop, waving his free hand at Natasha's inquisitive brow.

—

"Steven G. Rogers," Sam called out from behind a large bushel of uncut flowers, barely even glancing at the smaller man. "I can tell it's you by the heavy footsteps you make for someone whose shadow doesn't even reach the counter."

"Sam," Steve waved, grinning at him. "You know Natasha's usual."

Sam dropped the bushel onto a tray laden with a plain grey mat on it, shuffling over carefully to a freshly cut bunch of daisies in a transparent vase. "Daisies and violets, amirite?"

"Yep," Steve nodded, watching Sam go about his business of tying up the bundle of flowers. "So, I'm attracted to my new assistant." Steve admitted out of nowhere, interested in what his friend will have to say.

"Is he like the last one—" "No."

"I'm just being concerned," Sam said, setting down the bundle of daisies and moving to the violets.

"Well you shouldn't. He's just nineteen, and it's just a crush, that's all." Steve told Sam against a disbelieving look in his eye.

"Oh, I know how you deal with your crushes." Sam said, feigning resignation. "More like how you let them deal with you."

Steve rolled his eyes and takes the bundle from Sam, nodding a thank you. "Natasha says she'll pay for 'em later."

"She always does," Sam replied as Steve made his way back across the street to Natasha's coffee shop.

—

"You do know that your shop is a little scary, right?"

Natasha rolled her eyes at Tony's comment as she prepared his drink, fully prepared to spit in it.

"I mean, I love black and all, but the dark walls coupled with the eerie neon all-night coffee sign and the name The Russian Bean makes this place look a little…" Tony trailed off as Steve entered the shop, who was waving a small hello.

"Sketchy?" Steve continued for him. Tony agreed, helping him with the flowers, setting them down on the empty side of the cashier.

"I was going to say underground transvestite house, but let's go with your answer." Steve's eyes rolled before he even knew it.

"And that's what the flowers are for," Natasha said, picking up the bundle of daisies and handing them to an assistant who was barely even there, much less so working. "You tell Sam I was going to pay him later?" she asked, placing a lid on Tony's drink. Steve nodded, laughing.

"Yeah, um, do you ever pay him?"

"No, but I like to think I try." She said, handing over the drink and leaning on the countertop across Steve and Tony.

"There's a totally cute boy in your shop, Stevie. You fucking him? Or is that a birthday present for me, because you know Pepper doesn't give into the menage-a-trois thing, even if he's that cute." Tony said after taking a sip of his coffee, to which Steve was still bothered by how they just casually talk about sex in a coffee shop on a Saturday morning.

"No, and no." Steve said, eyeing Tony like he was a petulant sex-crazed child—and in most instances he was. "He's only nineteen and he's my assistant."

Natasha leaned closer to Tony, saying in a low voice, "or so he says."

"Shut up!" Steve burst, growing pathetically tired of their teasing. He put his hands up defeatedly, explaining slowly. "Alright, I wanna be more than his boss, but right now, he's just my assistant. And can you please not talk about this when he's around? I'd like to look like a decent human being unlike you people."

Nat and Tony nodded silently, and Steve breaks the silence with "so, how's business?"

Tony went first, his hands moving as he talked. "Well, we have finally reached a milestone with the amount of shares we got. We finally got a millionth of a shares of what my old man's got."

"You do still talk to him right?" Steve asked, leaning closer. "To ask for the millionaire allowance,"

"Well, I've grown quite fond of his assistant and answering machine, but I guess that's the most conversation the president of a multinational arms/tech company can have with his loving son," Tony told the two, eyes twinkling.

"Well, if you really did care, I might actually have felt sorry for you," Natasha said, feigning sympathy.

"Damn straight," Tony replied, picking himself up from the table and getting to his feet. "Welp, I better go. My loving girlfriend and I will be having wild and mind-blowing sex now. We do it reverse cowgirl every Saturday. I'll see you guys later," He turned to Steve. "And you. You go fuck that boy for me."

He strutted straight out the door as Steve rolled his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time today.

"Toodles!"

—

Steve headed out of the Russian Bean at around eleven-thirty in the morning, making a beeline towards his shop across the street. His fingers fidgeted with loose change and the cellphone that were in his left and right pockets as his mind raced at the possibility of this Bucky fella stealing most of his—

"Mr. Rogers," Bucky greeted cheerfully, a wide but tired grin on his face as he rose from the chair at the back of the "holy shit this place is clean." Steve blurted, carding his fingers through his blonde hair in disbelief.

The brunet's eyes fell to the floor again as Steve went up to every shelf, table and chair in the shop and touched them, marvelling at the cleanliness.

"You really know how to clean up, Mr. Barnes." Steve acknowledges Bucky at last, grinning the same smile as he walked up to the back of the store, a foot away from him. "Thanks a lot." Steve said, growing sheepish as the younger man was flustered, a hand at the back of his head.

"It's nothin'," Bucky tells Steve, before tearing his eyes from the floor to stare at the blonde's. "Say, uh, we should get to rearranging, I mean, you said you wanted to do it today and—"

"You've done enough for today, Bucky." Steve took a deep breath and met the other man's eyes, startled that Bucky was looking at him with an intensity in his grey-blue eyes that made Steve's skin crawl and grow hot.

"You…" Steve started, his eyes falling to Bucky's soft pink lips that hung open, like he was about to say something. "You should…"

Steve's heart raced in his chest, as his assistant's right hand went to his hot, flushed cheek. Steve gravitated to the touch, inching closer to the nineteen-year old, whose eyes never left his. Bucky's thumb drew small circles onto his boss's soft cheek, the tips of his fingers brushing the soft cartilaginous skin of Steve's ear.

Steve couldn't explain it, but their position felt comfortable, more than comfortable, his face in Bucky's hand, Bucky staring into his cold blue irises. If one of them moved to close the distance between their lips, neither could have been able to say who, the heated moment and the tension in the air cajoling them to kiss.

Bucky's lips were tender and large, but they fit perfectly against Steve's which were thin and soft. Steve felt Bucky tense into the kiss, but then become more brazen as his tongue prodded against his own, as if asking for permission.

Steve moaned into the kiss, unaware he had done so until the sound echoed in the heavy air, waves of pleasure rippling through every inch of his body. "Steve…" Bucky whispered into the kiss, before realisation dawned upon the owner of the name.

"You should go." Steve made out as he broke the kiss, instantly killing the smile that cracked through the brunet's lips. Bucky's eyes were filled with confusion, the surety and confidence that had burgeoned from him when they kissed dying immediately.

"I'm sorry Bucky."

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So what'd you think? Haven't posted in a while but please review! Thanks!


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